The raven was perched on a guardrail
on the side of a road
looking down a hill
as if remembering there
was a tree once where
there were branches
its talons once clasped.
. . . and then it was the next day and I was going
to Pittsburgh to my daughter’s and the day after
we were going to drive to Morgantown,
my hometown, born and bred – another
two hours away – her, for an appointment,
me for my birth certificate so I could get
a gold star on my driver’s license,
to protect me from what I didn’t know
but felt the sliver of fear added to the growing
despair of, “What-the-fuck-is-happening here?”
and so we left at eight in the morning on a road
I knew to a place I knew and memories started
to stir mile after mile something was recalled.
But the speed and distance kept things in perspective
and now never stumbled into then.
Though a couple times it was close
as I sighed deeply as though memories
were just being made but a cough
or something in my eye kept me from crossing
that border.
we ate at a place, Estab. 2006,
which was a far cry from 1956 when I can say
for certain, “I remember when” before
that uncertainty of then and now gets confused
and how I got to be so old when yesterday
was only a day away.
That raven clasping the guardrail,
looking down the hill as if yesterday and today
don’t know the difference between them.
It didn’t move as I went by.
-Byron Hoot
https://www.facebook.com/hootnhowlpoetry/
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